Survey: English, citizenship in demand

By J.E. Espino
Post-Crescent staff writer

APPLETON — Members of a local social justice group expected adult English classes to rank among top needs in the Fox Valley when they commissioned a survey of the Latino community.

The survey found high interest in English classes, but the 257 respondents also said they wanted workshops on how to attain U.S. citizenship and were interested in a Catholic Worker house with room for the arts.

Empowerment, Solidarity, Truth, Hope, Equality and Reform of Fox Valley Interfaith Organizing Group, commonly called ESTHER, wants to move quickly on those workshops.

More than a third of Appleton-area respondents said they and their children are naturalized or U.S.-born citizens, and a quarter are legal residents who are intimidated by or unaware about the steps to citizenship.

"We wanted to know who they are, where they are and what they do," said the Rev. Maynard Beemer, a retired pastor of Appleton's First Congregational Church and ESTHER president.

Programs such as those ESTHER is exploring made the difference between feeling isolated and included in the community for Appleton resident Carmen Bustamante.

This year, she, a sister and two brothers-in-law became U.S. citizens.

Bustamante is sure she wouldn't have been on the path to citizenship, despite living in the state nine years, had it not been for the encouragement and help she received in other areas of her day-to-day living from a neighbor who volunteers her time with Casa Hispana, a resource center for Spanish-speaking residents in the Fox Valley.

Bustamante, 34, recalls Judith Roberts urging her to obtain a driver's license, telling her, "You can. You have to do it." Once that was out of the way, Roberts urged her to initiate paperwork for citizenship.

Bustamante then was spurred to seek English lessons to fulfill requirements for citizenship. She now is in her third year with the Even Start Family Literature program, a joint project of the Appleton Area School District, Fox Valley Technical College and Catholic Charities. As the mother of two children, ages 7 and 4, her goal is to earn her GED and work in child care.

ESTHER, made up of 13 local churches, wants to build on successes like Bustamante's. The organization, fresh from conducting and participating in a few immigration forums, secured a grant to finance the survey from Catholic Campaign for Human Development.

Carlos Herrera of Appleton's St. Therese Catholic Church said an immigration committee is hammering out details for the adult English classes, likely to start in February.

In Omro, retired Rev. Joe Mattern said a vacant building in the downtown will serve as a Catholic Worker house he plans to call Casa ESTHER.

Mattern is completing a business plan for the center, which could open in March. Organizers want to set up computer stations, language courses and other services.

"The results are saying that we do definitely need comprehensive reform laws," he said. "These are people who are working here, who've been in the Valley almost 10 years, who would love to be citizens, who are contributing to the community."

Among her first actions as a new citizen, Bustamante says she applied for her passport. She looks forward to strengthening the Latino voting bloc when she votes in her first presidential election.

"Your vote counts," she said in Spanish. "It's one more vote. We can make the difference."

Bustamante's teacher, Kris Clouthier, marveled at the once painfully bashful woman's growth, all of which began to take hold with a simple task.

"She knew she was successful because she could now return a pair of boots or shoes without her husband," she said. Those are "the simple things that we don't realize, being able to go to the store and return something or exchange something without anybody's help."

Though unscientific, the survey provides a snapshot of the growing community, said Herrera, the Hispanic ministry coordinator.

Latino Catholic membership at that Appleton church tops 900 this year.

Some 1,800 Latinos reside in Appleton, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2006 figures. Outagamie and Winnebago counties' Latino population was estimated at 2.5 percent in 2005.

"The needs continue to be strong," Herrera said.

Of respondents polled from St. Therese, Iglesia Senda de Mora at Grace Lutheran Church in Appleton and St. Mary's Parish in Omro: